Dr Mohlers exit strategy of from government schools

I wish that the SBC would stop the insanity of "resolutions."

They are non-binding, and the singlemost source of contention in our denomination. And sometimes, a positively stupid one will be proposed...and the media acts as though it was unanimously approved.

So why do them? Leave it up to the autonomous churches...

 

It is left up to the autonomous churches. If you don't believe me, just ask all the thousands of Southern Baptists who still visit DisneyWorld every year. What the media thinks is irellevant to me.

Joseph Botwinick

 

rbell, I agree.

And I definitely think the SBC needs to stay away from supporting one means of education. I think they need to say that it is an individual matter and that the SBC supports homeschooling, public and private schooling.

I have a lot of respect for Dr. Mohler, but I disagree with him on this issue.

 

The public high school I went to had about 30% of the students go to college and naarly all of them graduated. Parents were heavily involved in the life of that school. Today things are quite the opposite because babies are raising babies. Parents exercise little discipline at home and the children come to school ready to do nothing except watch TV.

The SBC needs to quit thinking that they are the ones who change the world from the outside in. One would wonder if they know what born again means or anything about how God works. One would wonder if they read their Bible. Christ makes changes from the inside out.

There were plenty of times when I pastored where parents let their children walk around in church or talk during the sermon. I have none of that kind of lack of respect as a teacher in the classroom.

[ May 06, 2006, 02:52 PM: Message edited by: gb93433 ]

 

Just curious, why does the SBC "need" to say it supports public education?

 

I'm not so sure I am opposed to resolutions.
I don't necessarily see anything wrong with, and there is a lot right with, speaking to the issues of the day.
For example, in 1980 and 1982, the Convention passed pro-life resolutions. That was the first time. I am old enough to remember "Southern Baptists For Life" when the CLC was not prolife.

If the messengers to a Convention think a resolution is ridiculous, they don't have to vote for it.
Or even if they understand the sentiment but think it is misplaced.
If I were a messenger this year, I probably would not vote for the proposed school resolution. And yet I have homeschooled and do send my kids to private school.
But I think it is fine to present resolutions and debate them.

Karen

 

Just curious, why does the SBC "need" to say it supports public education? </font>[/QUOTE]Because not all of the public school situations are bad as some make it out to be.

There is a lot of good happening in our public schools and our churches are full of teachers that are investing their lives in children in the public school. I think that is a pretty good reason.

The convention should be pushing the idea that it is an individual family decision as to what is needed. All forms of education can be effective with parental involvement, prayer and hard work.

I see no reason for the convention to be supporting one particular form of education and claiming that it is the right fit for all families and churches in the convention.

 

Problem is, at least on the left coast, if you have a problem with the curriculum, you have no right to say anything about it, according to the 9th district court.

Anyone hear about how the legislation requiring gay, bi, transgender contributions to society in all classes is going? ... contributions made by people regardless of their sexuality are important, but to point out their sexuality in relation to their contributions is tripe.

 

I just listened to an archive show for Al Mohler where he discussed this very issue, and now I think I see his point more clearly. According to him, he is not advocating that all Christian parents pull their kids out right now. He even acknowledged that there are still public schools in this nation where the kids still get a good education and local control keeps things legit. He does, however, state that all Christian parents should have an exit strategy if they are ever faced with a totalitarian situation such as j_barner describes above. Looking at it from that angle, I have to agree. If the public schools in my area were to ever get to the point that they were indoctrinating my children against my beliefs and told me I had no say over it, it would indeed be good for me to have a strategy for getting my child out of that situation.

Joseph Botwinick

 

I suppose I don't see this resolution as "supporting one particular form of education and claiming that it is the right fit for all families and churches in the convention". I have read it several times and I still do not see that. It is simply a call for churches to consider helping families who need or want an alternative to the government schools in their area but who do not have an alternative, for whatever reason. Churches were once very instrumental in providing educational services to their communities, and I can see no reason that churches should not be called on to do the same today.

Besides, to say that not all schools are bad, therefore we don't need to encourage anyone to do anything, is simply not good reasoning. I wish I knew of a nicer way of saying it than that.

 

Reading it in the way Joseph and whatever have stated it I can see what Mohler is saying and I do not have a problem with that.

However, I do not think this is the way others are taking it and there are those calling for the SBC to call all parents to take their children out of the public schools, not just have a strategy to do so.

I still believe the SBC needs to push the responsiblity of each family to make the best decision in their own situation.

 

Just in case no one has listened to Dr. Mohler's program, here is an edited transcript:


http://www.albertmohler.com/radio_show.php?cdate=2006-05-03

Albert Mohler Program, Wednesday May 3, 2006 (Transcribed by an acquaintance from a podcast with slight editing from the 'Albert Mohler Program' - e.g. "er's", "you know's", and references to the caller have been deleted)

I did endorse and in fact I wrote a major article you can find at my Web site, entitled "Needed: An Exit Strategy."

I have suggested that Christian churches and Christian parents had better develop an exit strategy. I'm not saying that I can say for everyone that now is the time when they have to pull out of the public schools. I am saying that it's our responsibility at the very least to have a strategy so that we would know what we would do with our children and with the children of our churches as well as the children of our family, should we come to the conclusion that it is that time.

For my wife and I it always has been that time. Our children have never been in the public schools for some reasons I'd be very glad to talk about. But I am myself a product of the public schools, and there are different places in the country where at least at this point more local control means more sanity in the public schools.

There are some big questions though about how long that can last with federal mandates and the teacher unions and all the rest. But you know if you listen to this program it's kind of a litany from time to time of all these things happening. We were just talking about Lexington, Massachusetts, the court case out of California, so I've got some big concerns there.

But when I talk about a strategy I mean just that, a strategy. I think every church and every Christian family needs a strategy for what they would do when they think it's time to pull the kids out. Some have already made that decision. Their strategy is already in place. Others I think need to make that strategy put it in place and decide what they are going to do.

I don't think God calls upon Christian parents to put our children in the schools as guinea pigs as salt and light. I'll be honest. I just don't think that at all is the biblical vision. The public schools are an innovation. They are not a fact of nature. And there's an agenda behind them. During the age of the 20th century the agenda was making American citizens. The central ideological character behind that was John Dewey, who taught most extensively at teachers college at Columbia University. He really set the agenda for the public schools nationwide in terms of separating children from their parents, in terms of ethnicity, in language and creating a common culture. He was explicitly anti-Christian. He wanted a common faith that had nothing to do with belief in God.

Local schools can be very different than that. But when you come to our contemporary time, I'm not going to let my kids get this stuff crammed down their throats. If I were a parent right now in Lexington, Massachusetts, there's no way I would ever allow my kids to be put in schools where the district superintendent says it is their job to teach kids to accept homosexual marriage. I'm just not going to do that.

You may be in a place that is not happening yet, and if so thank God, but I do believe the day is going to come. I don't think the salt and light argument has to do with putting our children under the authority of persons who are going to teach the opposite of what we believe.

I think this is something Christian parents need to talk about together. I think it's very important. I just want to encourage local churches to help facilitate this discussion, because I think there's a lot of wisdom among parents, Christian parents, who in the local church would really gather together to talk and think these things through.

Right now there's a sense in which if you do that the pastor is scared to death that it is going to offend the teachers and principals and administrators in the public school system. I'm just going to tell you that's a risk I think you are going to have to take. A little honesty on all sides would be really, really helpful here. We need to pray for those committed Christian teachers and school administrators who are doing their dead-level best to really teach children, to teach them the truth, to teach them in ways that are consistent with their own convictions. I don't want to see all the Christian teachers and administrators pull out of the public schools.


(Prison chaplain lost appeal to organize worship service in prisonPrisons and school
"thwey are both understood to be government institutions." And First Amendment adjudication applies)

If you're in a place right now where it's a happier situation, then I am not presuming that I can walk in and tell you exactly what you must do as a parent. I would not presume to do that, except for the fact that you must be ready to make certain your children have the kind of education you believe convictionally they must have.

I was asked by someone the other day, 'Why would you not allow your children to be in the public schools, and when they come home talk about the same issues and then correct whatever they have been learning from those who oppose what you believe?'

There are about two or three reasons for that. Number one, those school teachers often have kids, in terms of their attentive time, more than even parents--that they're outside the home, they're in the sphere of the school's control. Secondly especially for young children, I think the introduction of authorities other than parents, who are going to teach in contradiction of what the parent thinks, is a very dangerous thing. When you've got elementary kids saying, 'I know this is what Mom and Dad say but the teacher, who's got a college degree and she's got a master's degree, she's accredited.' When she has this kind of credibility I don't think that's something I want to do.

The other issue has to do with the total control, the big picture of the education. What kind of education do you want for your kids? I think that's the big question. I'm thankful for the education I've received and I'm thankful for all the public school teachers who loved me and gave me so much and my classmates as well. I just wonder if they'd be able to do that now in many school systems.


Soli Deo Gloria,
Elizabeth


Mrs. Elizabeth Watkins, Executive Director
Southern Baptist Church & Home Education Association
900 Harrell Road
West Monroe, Louisiana 71291

ewatkins@sbchea.org
www.sbchea.org
(972) 213-5460

 

See---thats the "whole ball of wax" there, SBC!! The SBC can "call" for parents to (in my words) "evacuate" the public schools---but thats all we can do as the SBC! Parents do not have to "obey" the SBC--even if we(the SBC) DO call for a evacuation.

Parents are being blinded by society!! Its amazing the peer preasure being placed upon parents---not only by their own kids--but by society!! And parents won't have a plan to evacuate the public school---until they have a plan to evacuate from society's "Egypt"---do you understand there?? Until they come to a point where they are no longer willingly to be called "the son(s) of Pharoah's daughter"---until they reach that point---they will continue to "play along" with society and its paganisms!!!

 

Mohler forgot to cite the case in Vista, CA a few years ago where the Christians in the community got involved and voted several Christians on the school board. They made enough change that it made the national news. Mohler is just like the typical SBC leader--complain and do nothing. My Bible says the righteous are bold as a lion. Where is his courage and tenacity. Where is his boldness except to speak where he is comfortable around those just like himself. There are Chrisitian public school teachers and Mohler does have enough courage to go before a school board but instead cries about how bad things are. Idiots as men like him are called by the world make it much more difficult for Christian teachers to share their faith because men like him have gone before them with their big mouth. They have thieves in the den in the SBC and they are not even cleaning their own house. Look at NAMB and the IMB.

Anyone ever heard him say even once that he has personally made any disciples? No disciples means disobedience to scripture.

Anyone know when was the last time he spoke against any ungodly practice in the SBC?

This kind of nonsense reminds me of the saying, "An empty bag makes the most noise."

 

Try the ignorance and easy believeism in the church too. Professors will tell you that students in the seminaries are coming with less and less Bible knowledge. That is not society, but the church leaders. How many church leaders do you know who are currently making disciples?

 

Funny you should mention such a thing. A friend of mine who is a principal in another state has told me they like Texas teachers. He is at a school where the average cost of a home is around $450K. The schools are very good there.

My daughter started school at Ft. Worth Elementary and it was one of the best schools she has been at. At the end of kindergarten she was already writing paragraphs.

 

The students can easily see the godly from the ungodly teachers. The Christian students get a chance to see Christ in action in the world. As I have prayed, God has given me some tremendous opportunities at the universities. Opportunities are all over the place.

I would rather see students around those students who are coming to Christ in a public school than the majority of Christians in a church.

 

Dear gb93433,
I think it is evident that Al Mohler has made many disciples. From the position he is in, he impacts many lives.

I know that I have been helped over the years many times by things that he has written. So in that sense, he has discipled me.

I admire the thoughtful way he speaks on current cultural issues.

You write with such sweeping statements, sometimes. Sure sounds like you have been burned a lot, and I am sorry.

Do you only define making disciples as one particular style of witnessing and Bible study?
That is what I think I'm hearing from you.
By your apparent definitions, many of the Christians that have had an incredible positive impact on my life don't meet your standards.
We are all called to reflect Christ, but it is manifested in a variety of ways and spiritual gifts.

Karen